Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

harthur.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–650 of 826 posts

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#641

Post by awj »

dos1 wrote: post #527
nollidge wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's David Cramer's notpology: http://justcramer.com/2013/01/24/being-wrong-on-the-internet...

Wow, David Cramer is a total asshole! That Steve Klabnik guy is also an asshole. The only one who doesn't appear to a complete dick is Corey Haines, whose apology was better. Not great, but better. Here's the thing - if you ever even consider saying things like this to someone on the internet, you're an asshole. It's not a one time accidental thing. Nope, it's in your personality. I hope I never meet either of these…

Meanwhile calling people assholes and declaring that the reason is "in [their] personality" based on what they may have considered saying, that's perfectly ok?

Have you really never made a comment without fully thinking out the ramifications, without missing some of the consequences, or just simply without really thinking period? People say shitty things sometimes, but labeling them as an asshole for all time based on that is patently ridiculous.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#642

Post by nollidge »

calinet6 wrote: post #535
nollidge wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's David Cramer's notpology: http://justcramer.com/2013/01/24/being-wrong-on-the-internet...

This is bound to be an unpopular opinion, but why exactly does anyone have to apologize? He's absolutely right. Criticism comes from every corner, especially in the software world. Your code stands for itself. Simple as that. And I tell this to almost every programmer I work with at some point or another. If they have an emotional response to a code review, or criticism of any kind—"Code is never personal. Whatever I…

So I see your update, but what exactly drove you to take the side of the critic before evaluating the criticism?

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#643

Post by mpyne »

papsosouid wrote: post #613
mpyne wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use ack, but that's because it searches for the right file types, ignores source control directories automatically, and has pretty colors, not because it's find+grep.

Other than "pretty colors", your statement contradicts itself. Doing the things you mentioned is being find+grep. That's the entire point of ack, to be find+grep.

I didn't say that find couldn't ignore source control directories or find only specific file types. However, ack does that far better as it has a better semantic awareness of both concepts.

I don't have to worry about updating my find command lines to account for new types of source code or source control folders in unfamiliar programs, I need only ensure that ack is kept up-to-date.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#644

Post by PeterisP »

lobotryas wrote: post #421
confluence wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can write complex vector math in C from memory - doesn't mean everyone needs to be able to do it. That replace library does what it's supposed to do - it replaces shit easily. Don't like it - don't use it. If people want to do more - then they'll figure it out for themselves. For everyone who already knows more - eat some humble cake.

>Don't like it - don't use it. This is a false dilemma and completely misses the point. The replace library was written by a person who either never heard of or never learned how to use SED. Just because they created their own hack as a workaround doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

If a program is nontrivial to learn and use (as the sed examples shown in mrb's post illustrate) then a good solution is to make a better, more easily usable tool tan sed.

As for editors - there is a niche for emacs and there is a niche for notepad. If a program is weaker on some aspects but clearly superior in another aspect, then it has a valid niche and making it really is the 'right thing to do'. Usability/discoverability is a very important aspect of software, and sed is a bit lacking there.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#645

Post by webreac »

pekk wrote: post #550
webreac wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my work I have always to go from one computer to another one (to analyse software problems). Sometimes I need to ask a developer to come on site to give a look to the behaviour of its code. It occurs very often that very good developers are completely lost when they arrive on a computer where all their marvellous customizations and shortcuts are missing. Many developer are always on the same environment. They can…

Which shell commands you use is a micro-detail. There is a surplus of shell commands, most of the features of which go unused. Meanwhile, some people are coding on Windows or an Apple platform and not using any of this. It really doesn't matter. This is nothing but justifying wanting people to do things the same way you do, without being able to explain why it is actually better.

Reread what I wrote. I have been moded down enough for giving my opinion about why this additional shell command can makes people angry. There are perhaps many young developers here that are fed-up listening to old ones telling them to learn basic unix way. I can understand them, but this is not a sufficient reason to reinvent the wheel without improvements, or to negate the obvious.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#646

Post by pbiggar »

bane wrote: post #603
pbiggar wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is. I think its the 3rd kind: "I didnt say what I thought you said, but I can see how I hurt you and I'm sorry". Assuming that's true - which I think is a reasonable assumption based on how he teaches and his blog post from last year about being nice - it would seem wrong for him to post a full out apology.

no it's definitely a "I'm sorry for offending you, but seriously fuck you for using node."

He definitely said that in the later tweets. Maybe you're right - its definitely less of an apology than his comments merited.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#647

Post by nollidge »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #565
dos1 wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't merely say the project "wasn't good", he implied it in a snarky, very unconstructive way. Here's his quote from twitter: > Ever wanted to make sed or grep worse? http://github.com/harthur/replace In the world I live in, that's called being an asshole. Look, I'm not saying these guys should apologize (in fact, if this is how they apologize it's probably best they don't), I'm simply stating that they're dicks…

It shouldn't matter if it's unconstructive. He's not talking to the author of the code. I still don't see how being snarky, or god forbid considering being snarky, makes you an asshole. It's just some code; he's not insulting anybody.

That's fine, but saying "this code makes my eyes bleed" is very obviously meant to demean the human being who wrote the code, not the code itself.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#648

Post by papsosouid »

mpyne wrote: post #643
papsosouid wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than "pretty colors", your statement contradicts itself. Doing the things you mentioned is being find+grep. That's the entire point of ack, to be find+grep.

I didn't say that find couldn't ignore source control directories or find only specific file types. However, ack does that far better as it has a better semantic awareness of both concepts. I don't have to worry about updating my find command lines to account for new types of source code or source control folders in unfamiliar programs, I need only ensure that ack is kept up-to-date.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Your post contradicted itself. You literally said "I don't use ack because it is find+grep, I use it because it is find+grep". I am simply pointing this out.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#649

Post by jff »

quasque wrote: post #82
jlongster wrote: post #36

What the fuck. (And I rarely say that word.) We've got to grow up. This is 9th grade all over again. You know, those weird people that do things that you don't understand? They're the ones that grow up and make big impacts on the world. Why can't we get over our negativity? We can't stop ourselves from thinking horrible things, or even saying them out loud to people around us, but surely we can restrain ourselves fro…

I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was a strong undercurrent of misogyny involved here, motivating their incivility and rudeness.

The majority of HN readers seem to have assumed that the author is male. I assumed the same thing for most of it, before getting suspicious at the non-joking use of "sobbing". I wouldn't be surprised if these Twitter posters made the same assumption.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#650

Post by Dylan16807 »

Gigablah wrote: post #580
Dylan16807 wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shouldn't matter if it's unconstructive. He's not talking to the author of the code. I still don't see how being snarky, or god forbid considering being snarky, makes you an asshole. It's just some code; he's not insulting anybody.

Ever wanted to see a bad argument? Read the post by Dylan16807!

As long as you're linking a specific post, go for it. I've made mistakes.

But I'm going to hope it's not just a post you disagree with. Just like I hope you don't call code bad because it uses OTB or omits semicolons. It should be failing to solve the problem it sets out to solve, and in an interesting manner. (Note: I have not looked at the code tweeted about.)

Edit: Wait how did THIS post get downvoted? I can understand the earlier posts but I can't even imagine what's objectionable about this one.

Post reply on HN